mermaid

Mermaid Monday #8: Black-Tailed Treasure Hunter Mermaid

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Now, tail color for a mermaid isn’t destiny any more than hair color is for humans, but there is something about black tails and treasure hunting that seem to go together, and it does make for more efficient camouflage than shiny gold generally does. Treasure hunters often end up being flashier than their gold-tailed friends when they’re not on the job, showing off their most recent finds and piercing their fins, but it’s hard to begrudge them any of their triumphs since they don’t tend to live out their natural lifespans.

This treasure hunter loves flashy clothes and heavy jewelry when she’s not exploring, but on the job she has a lot to carry and consider, so she dresses for speed (although she can’t quite let go of her lucky fin piercing) and comfort. She also has a small shovel in her backpack and carries a trident to help fend off sharks. She might look a little gloomy to those of us who associate black with death, but mermaids think of green as the color of death, since they fancy that the bubbles that mermaids turn into have an iridescent green tinge.

The Good Queen continues to triumph…

poll by twiigs.com

Mermaid Monday #7: Crimson Tailed Mermaid with White Ruffly Top and Ruby Jewelry

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This mermaid was born with red hair and a red tail, and although red has positive connotations in mermaid culture, associated with weddings as it is, she thought it was just too unfair for words to be naturally confined to one color and longed for shining black hair, or maybe a lovely gold tail instead. (Most mermaids have different color hair and tails, so we might consider her something of a mermaid albino, in a way.) She was quite self-conscious about it for some time, because she was teased about being destined to marry early by her mom and sisters and the less kind mermaids nicknamed her “Sockeye.” Then she figured out that humans found red an intriguing and sexy color, and they didn’t know that her peers thought that she was some kind of freak. So, far from being ashamed of her natural coloration, she embraced it and started spending more time on land than sea, dancing all night in outrageous crimson gowns and demanding presents of ruby jewelry from her admirers. She ended up forsaking the sea entirely and became a famous actress among humans, never marrying but constantly throwing spectacular parties in her indoor grotto for her favorite actors, artists, aristocrats and sometimes even a reformed pirate or two. Sometimes she would send invitations to those who had called her “Sockeye,” but the invitations were meant as a slap in the face and all concerned knew it.

Putting our scarlet girl aside for now, I am quite happy today because I ordered sixty-one new colored pencils this morning. Ten of them are colorless blenders, since those are like water running through my hands, soon sharpened into nothingness (well, actually into little stubs I can’t use until I find some decent pencil extender). Maybe 40% of them are replacements of colors that are getting low, and then the rest are colors that have come out in the ten years I’ve had my set. I’m ecstatic just thinking about their names! Pale sage! Ginger root! Kelp green! Come to me quickly, little pencils, and we will have some fun together.

This poll has a clear winner so far, but it’s not time for it to go away yet…

poll by twiigs.com

Halloween Costume Series Day 4 / Mermaid Monday #6: Pearl Blue Mermaid Costume with Pearl and Lapis Lazuil Strands and Pink Shells

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You thought I forgot about Mermaid Monday! I never forget about things, I just don’t do them and then become consumed by guilt.

The good thing about my October project is that it’s quite freeing not to worry in the least about what time period something is from or if it’s accurate or realistic. I started sketching for my ghost, ending up with something that looked like a ghostly Juliet (hence the reference in the text) and thought, well, is this OK? Is it like something from that time period? Maybe I’d better look it up… Then I realized it was a costume and I had perfect license not to care. Since with my historical dresses I attempt to stay in the style of the times right down to the year without just copying another dress, it can be difficult to do them properly. This month, I’m winging it! and it’s great!

The bad side is that most of my outfits are costumes in some way anyways, so the energy I don’t devote to thinking “is it accurate?” instead goes to “is it a costume?” There can be no mermaid costume in our world better than the costumes Iris and Sylvia already have access to, since our world does require feet. With imagination, most everything I’ve drawn is a costume already and my October project is redundant. (But fun!)

There are plenty of masquerades in the mermaid world, both among the mermaids and on land with the humans and elves, but the mermaids certainly don’t dress up like mermaids and for any of the others to do so would be in bad taste. No, this costume (really just a hobble skirt with ruffles sewn on the bottom) is most certainly from our world, and since here there are no real mermaids to compare it to it does its job well enough. What do mermaids dress up as for their Halloween, you might wonder? Unsurprisingly, they dress as things that scare them or things they aspire to, although mermaid takes on human culture are becoming popular as well. There are three more Mondays in the month, so we’ll see.

New poll on the 8th! So don’t neglect to take this one…

poll by twiigs.com

Mermaid Monday #5: Blue Seafoam Gown with Silver and Seaglass Girdle

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I’m back, and hopefully can get back to doing a dress a day. I was doing so well, too…

All my mermaid-y things are bound to have elements of Puget Sound for a while, since I went to visit my parents in Seattle and we spent a week at the beach. This gown is inspired by the way the waves break at high tide — the shawl and lace are meant to look like seafoam. Also, the silver girdle is set with pieces of seaglass. I count this as Mermaid Monday, because I figure they have to leave sometimes. (Brian thought this looked like the sort of thing one might wear to a wedding on the land.)

I haven’t done one since Cloud, so it’s not the best, but I’ll get back in the swing of things soon enough, I’m sure! (Cloud is turning out to be unexpectedly popular… I think I may have to redo his skirt, it’s too flat and bugs me to no end.)